Eastern Promises (2007)

“Anger is dangerous. It makes people do stupid things.” – Nikolai

Number of Times Seen – 2 (16 Dec 2007 and 10 Jul 2018)

Brief Synopsis – After treating a pregnant young girl who walks into the ER, a midwife unknowingly gets involved with the Russian Mob in London as she seeks out the young girl’s family.

My Take on it – This is a film that I saw over a decade ago, yet still had some vivid memories of some of the most powerful scenes even after such a long time.

They do a great job showing the internal workings of the modern mob in a very modern city and make it all feel quite genuine.

The story itself flows quite well and the added twists and turns along the way keep thing both interesting and entertaining the entire time even upon a rewatch.

The cats of this film is excellent and Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts and Armin Mueller-Stahl are all superb in their roles because they all feel very genuine the entire time.

The tension level in this film builds up really well and they manage to do quite a thorough job helping the story move along at a great pace.

As great as Mortensen is in this film, I’m still not convinced that he was deserving of an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for this role.

It’s to bad that the sequel planned for this film never materialized because it would have been nice to see where this story could move on.

Bottom Line – Great film that does an interesting job showing us the internal working of the modern mob in a very modern city. The story comes across as being quite realistic and the twists and turns along the way are great even upon a rewatch. The cast is excellent and Mortensen, Watts and Mueller-Stahl all give superb performances. The level of tension in the story constantly is raised and they do a very thorough job making the story work so well. I’m not sure why Mortensen was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor for this film even though he does do a great job; I’m just not convinced that it was worthy of an Oscar nomination. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – One day after shooting, Viggo Mortensen went to a pub without washing off his tattoos or even changing out of his costume. He claims that some of the patrons became very frightened of him, assuming he was a real member of Vory v Zakone. (From IMDB)

Rating – Globe Worthy (8/10)

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